Star Wars Stuff

Watch The Clone Wars carefully and you might catch quite a few shout-outs to the Star Wars films in various allusions and Easter eggs.

Wired’s GeekDad Blog points out a few:

• In a gambit later used by Han Solo and Luke Skywalker aboard the first dreaded Death Star, Cad Bane disguises himself in trooper armor to escape notice and slip past security.
• When Admiral Yularen says “No! Lock them all down, hurry!” it is a reference to C-3PO’s line in A New Hope, as he frantically admonishes R2-D2 to shut down the trash compactors aboard the Death Star.
• The holographic mobile hovering over the Gungan toddler’s crib includes a colo clawfish, an opee sea killer and a sando aqua monster, the three massive underwater beasts that attack Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s submarine in The Phantom Menace.

Read the full list here:
Ten Star Wars Allusions and Easter Eggs in Clone Wars (via Wired)

(501st Great Lakes Garrison troopers – Jon Leopold and Craig Provine guard the Tauntaun cake!)

(Photos by mod4)

Star Wars artist Chris Trevas let us know of this glorious Tauntaun cake for his wedding!

Julie and I had Courtney Clark from Cake Nouveau of Food Network Challenge (and TLC Ultimate Cake-Off) fame do our wedding cakes including a special cake request from me — Luke Skywalker stuffed inside a dead Tauntaun!

It was certainly one of the talks of the wedding evening. Older relatives were a bit confused, but the kids and our friends loved it!

Courtney did an amazing job! My wife Julie and I are big Food Network nerds so we were geeked to hire her.

As further proof of what cake nerds we are, my only big non-Star Wars job I did last year was artwork for the Ace of Cakes book just released this month.

Whatever points this Brooklyn Star Wars fans gets for out-of-the-box thinking might be offset by his tact. Also, this post has been removed from Craigslist, so we’re left to wonder if he was successful or not. Click on the image below to enlarge. (via Buzzfeed).

Happy Birthday to our favorite sassy princess, Carrie Fisher!

You can find her on Twitter here.

Words: Bonnie Burton
Photos: Damian Dayton

Crafty Star Wars fan Damian Dayton literally walks the fanboy talk by customizing his shoes to show off his love for the characters living in a galaxy far, far away. Starwars.com chats with him about why he likes to transform ordinary kicks into shoes worthy of an Empire.

Why do you like giving shoes a Star Wars makeover?

Ever since I was little I knew that Star Was was cooler than me. By putting some Star Wars on shoes, I thought that a little bit of the Force might just rub off on me. Truthfully, I just like to draw, and drawing on shoes allows me to customize my life a little bit.

Doing shoes for friends allows me to have encouragement to create art, or at least craft. I try to capture a little bit of their personalities in the work I do and I have a lot of friends that like Star Wars. My brothers are big fans and my best friend Adam knows every single creature in the Star Wars universe (and I think he speaks a few languages). So it was just a matter of time.

Why do you think Star Wars shoes are cooler than the usual kicks?

Anything is at least 12%-15% cooler with Star Wars stuff on it (with the exception of Jar Jar Binks, maybe). Consider the Slanket, unless you want to look like a wizard who got dressed in the dark, it is a horrible, horrible idea. Now if that Slanket had a picture of Boba Fett playing an electric guitar, or a screen print of Jabba the Hutt (complete with Salacious Crumb), I’d be like “Oh, where can I get one of those!”

What inspired your Darth Vader pair of shoes?

Darth Kicks were my first Star Wars shoes. I thought that I should go evil with it. I think there is an extra cool caché with evil characters right now. Maybe it’s from the Post-Modernism of The Clone Wars but stormtroopers seem to have a resurgence of cool as does Darth Vader. He’s not totally evil. Sure, he destroyed a few planets, but remember how he stuck it to Grand Moff Tarkin and all those empire bureaucrats?

I don’t think anyone would want a pair of Luke shoe’s whining about power converters (my VERY FIRST vans have clouds on them and I call them my Skywalkers). C-3PO in gold on a brown shoe would look cool, but the idea is almost a non-starter. Nobody wants a protocol shoe.

What kind of paints did you use?

Okay, this is the embarrassing part. My shoes are not archival. They will wear down. Remember how revolutionary Star Wars was because the future wasn’t pristine? Well, my shoes are like that too. I use mostly acrylic paints, sometimes gesso, paint pens and sharpies. Fabric Mate also makes some great fabric pens. Then I give them a good spritz of protectant (that I am still experimenting with if anyone has suggestions).

My first few shoes were all Sharpie, but for lighter colors you have to go with something a little more viscous the white pens just don’t cut it. I mostly paint just the white parts and then draw everything else. I like the process of drawing more than painting and you don’t have to wait for as much drying time. When I do the Darth kicks I paint all of the white parts and block in anything that will be in color with white, then come back with paint pens and Sharpies to add the details.

What advice can you give other crafty fans who want to give their shoes a dark side makeover?

This is TOTALLY easy. You should do it!

TIP 1: BUY CHEAP SHOES. If you are nervous — buy a pair of Vans-like shoes at Wal-Mart (they’re like $10 bucks). Then buy a box of chalk. You can draw with the chalk on the shoes first to try out your design, then come back with Sharpie. My stormtrompers are a pair of Wal-mart shoes with nothing but Sharpie on them. It’s totally fun to knock out while you are watching TV and at worse you are out $10 if your drawing doesn’t work. With the paint, you might want to experiment a little first.

Tip 2: PROPORTIONS ARE KEY. The triangle you make from eyes to mouth is what we humans use to recognize each other and while there is not a lot of detail in these designs, getting that proportion right is important in making them recognizable.

Tip 3: LESS IS MORE. Too much detail will ruin the negative space try to figure out what is the minimum requirement of detail to put on this shoe to make it look like you want it to. I spend more time thinking about what I want to put on the shoe and how I want to place it than my actual painting/drawing process.

Most mistakes are happy ones that make the shoe look better. I have only ruined two pair of shoes so far, and some of my favorite shoes now are ones that I thought were horrible ideas to begin with. I did a pair of Falcor from The Never-ending Story which I dreaded but now I think they look totally boss, despite their unwillingness to stick it to authority.

Read more here:
Shoe Vader: The Empire Kicks Back

Before you decide to don that homemade sexy Ewok costume, or dress up as a Bacon Jedi (best of both worlds really), take a moment to think what kind of message you’re sending to friends, family, co-workers and strangers who see you walking across the street.

A.V. Club offers some insight on what your costume says about you.

Piling on enough costume and make-up to make yourself unrecognizable to your own parents, you’re free to act with social impunity. But as you’re strutting around wearing little more than underwear and angel wings, or rocking the look of a celebrity before the ink on his or her death certificate is even dry, remember that dressing up and acting out might betray more about your personality than your day-to-day behavior does.

New parents out with baby
Having your first child can often be seen as an opportunity to start reliving your youth, plus it is likely the first time you have a companion small enough to effectively wear a Yoda costume.

What you think it says about you: “Halloween was a magical part of our childhoods and we couldn’t wait to share it with our son or daughter.”

What it actually says: “Even though we are both only 24 years old, we are both getting used to spending this otherwise fun holiday changing a tiny Chewbacca’s diapers.”

Read full article here:
The A.V. Club psychoanalyzes your Halloween costume ideas
(via A.V. Club)

StarWars.com readers may remember our interview with Peter Shillingford, who directed the 1977 childhood immunization public service announcement ad that aired shortly after the release of A New Hope. As it seems a lot of archival home-made movies have been making their way online lately (see the 1976 ILM home movie here), we thought we’d share another recent discovery reportedly posted by the grandson or granddaughter of the Star Wars PSA’s producer. From poster “sowtime444”:

This was shot by my grandparents in England. There is no sound. My grandfather worked for the Kennedy Foundation and produced the Star Wars commercials. He was a talented writer, among other things. He is the one with the orange-red vest on.

The footage reveals over five minutes of the goings-on behind the scenes on the commercial shoot, which starred both Anthony Daniels as C-3PO and Kenny Baker as R2-D2. Director Peter Shillingford is the chap in the blue sweater.

Watch Video: 1977 Star Wars PSA Behind the Scenes

Also, check out the original commercial here.

The comic Get Fuzzy (by Darby Conley) contemplates how tourism would improve if Canada went through a Star Wars makeover. I think they might be on to something! Anyone want to road trip to Torontooine or Newfoundlando?

READ COMIC: Get Fuzzy: Star Wars Canada Map
(via Comics.com)

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(Thanks for the tip, Michelle Snow!)

Max Records, star of the movie Where the Wild Things Are, drops some Star Wars references about his audition with director Spike Jonze into his interview with Conan O’Brien on The Tonight Show.

Max: “The final audition was probably the strangest that was with Spike here in LA. During which he shot foam bullets at me which I tried to block with an umbrella like a lightsaber.”

Conan: “But that’s not in the movie!”

Max: “You don’t understand, Max has to have awesome Force powers.”

WATCH VIDEO: Max Records on The Tonight Show

Some crucial skills in life never seem to be taught in schools. Case it point — the Wookiee roar. Now thanks to these step-by-step instructions by this lovely Star Wars fan, you too can chitchat like Chewbacca in no time.

WATCH VIDEO: How to Make the Chewbacca Noise
(via HowCast.com)